Facebook Organic Engagement is a Dead Zone for Marketers... What Now?

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Eric Meyerson is Head of Marketing for Sensai, a new startup that gives businesses, creators, and artists the power to market themselves more effectively on social media with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Eric is a respected industry veteran in social media, marketing, and consumer technology, and a former marketing leader at Facebook and YouTube.

He is a sought-after media commentator and thought leader on topics and trends related to online marketing, social media industry trends, and the rapid changes affecting social media platforms (and the impact for SMBs, artists and content creators).

Facebook has recently introduced major changes to its algorithm that is making life more challenging for budget-constrained marketers. Eric Meyerson, Head of Marketing at Sensai and a veteran of Facebook and YouTube, explains what business owners and brand managers should do next to revitalize their Facebook presence

Although Facebook’s stock price continues to climb, there’s no denying that Facebook has lost some of its brand luster in recent years – teenagers are mostly avoiding it, US Senators are criticizing it for the way Russian agents abuse it to manipulate public opinion around the world, and privacy advocates are unhappy with how Facebook allowed companies to wrongly access private user data.

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For its part, Facebook has made some smart moves in 2018 to re-engage users and win back trust, including product changes to better reward the personal connections that once made Facebook so exciting and entertaining. They’ve supported these updates with a substantial advertising campaign to remind people why they love(d) Facebook, and to demonstrate their commitment to improvement.

Unfortunately for marketers and business owners, these changes have severely damaged their ability to reach their customers and fans organically. Now millions of small business owners are re-evaluating whether Facebook marketing is still a good deal for their companies.

What happened here? Just a few years ago, Facebook was being hailed as the ultimate Next Big Thing for marketing. “Like Us on Facebook” used to be the most common mantra in digital marketing. You may have been posting regularly and growing your fan base. But now, those Likes you spent precious hours and dollars cultivating aren’t worth that much anymore.

Here’s the problem:

Facebook keeps changing the rules. In part to mitigate their various controversies, Facebook has made numerous and significant changes to its algorithm that controls what people actually see when they visit each day. Many of these changes have been confusing and counterproductive for marketers who used to count on Facebook to engage their customers.

For example, a recent algorithm update, called the Facebook Zero update, prioritizes personal Facebook posts in News Feed – so people will see more of their friends’ personal status updates, but at the expense of reducing business Pages’ “organic reach” to near zero. Why is this important? Because it now means business pages can no longer expect to reach their own audiences with new Facebook posts alone. If you post a new update on Facebook, no one will see it unless you pay Facebook to promote the posts to the same people you already paid Facebook to “Like” your page in the first place.

Annoying, right? So is Facebook still a good place for marketing? The answer is: Yes…but you need to adjust your strategy.

If you’re asking people to “Like us on Facebook,” stop doing that. Do this instead.

Below are a few key tips – backed by credible data – on what the new winning Facebook marketing strategies might look like for your business:

Get into Other Feeds:

While many people think Facebook = News Feed, that is absolutely not the case. People are spending increasing time in Groups, often with notifications for new content in those groups. Find Groups that are relevant to your business, and use those to engage with people productively. Don’t spam or be overly commercial, or you might get booted by moderators. Instead, use Groups to build awareness and trust. Facebook Stories is another feed you should consider -- you can reach the people who’ve already Liked your page, with videos, images, and graphics. Which brings us to...

Get Visual:

If you want to get engagement on Facebook, text-heavy posts aren’t going to do it. Facebook was born during the desktop computing era, so News Feed started as a place for reading, but the visual content is how you make an emotional impact. Use photos, memes, comics, infographics, GIFs, and Facebook Live videos. Spend some time (and if needed, invest some money) in creating great-looking original visual content to share on Facebook. There are tools available such as GIMP (a free, open source image editor that gives you many of the same capabilities as Photoshop), PicsArt (a mobile app to create amazing-looking photos from your iPhone or Android), Easil (a DIY drag and drop graphic design tool that gives you professional-looking images, templates, banner graphics, and more), and Giphy (an easy-to-use tool to find and create fun, humorous GIF animations to help you crack jokes and convey an appealing attitude of irreverence on Facebook).

Focus on Influencers:

One implication of the Facebook Zero update, as explained in this great MarTechAdvisor article, is that influencer marketing is now more important than ever before. If your company can no longer reach people directly from your Facebook page (without buying ads), then another strategy is to reach out to the influential people who have a big following and who are passionate about your brand, industry, product or category. Find people who are passionate about your business – reach out directly to some of your biggest fans who have already been commenting on your posts, and ask them to share your content or invite people to your events. If Facebook is making it harder to reach people, then your business needs to reach the people who are one step closer to the people you want to reach.

Timing is as Important as Content:

Take another look at the timing of your activity. Sensai’s data has shown that each business has a unique audience with different optimal posting times. One of our musician customers had for years been sharing new tracks and news on Saturdays, thinking that was when his fans would be in the right frame of mind. But when he tested Tuesdays, he saw his results improve dramatically! Test a few different times or days of the week for posting and engaging, and see which times get the best results. If you can get better at posting at the right times of day or days of the week, you might be able to get much better Facebook marketing results without spending more time (or money).

Test Changes to Your Creative Content:

There are more automated/AI tools available than ever before to help your company navigate the world of online marketing – everything from finding Facebook influencers to optimizing your Facebook ad budget to automating the online ad buying process. But as described in this useful article, one thing that cannot be automated is compelling creative content. Take some time to test different versions of your creative – whether it’s a sponsored post or a photo or infographic or anything else you share on Facebook. Even a slight adjustment in the color or layout or format might lead to dramatically different results; you won’t know until you try.

Don’t give up on Facebook. It’s still the world’s largest social media platform and there are still plenty of good features that marketers can use to connect with customers and grow their audience. However, just like with any other long-term relationship, you need to keep your Facebook presence fresh and vital!